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USDA LOOKS IN HOUSE FOR HAGEN REPLACEMENT: Friday was Elisabeth Hagen’s last day as the undersecretary for food safety at USDA. Anne MacMillan, USDA’s deputy chief of staff, and Al Almanza, the department’s food safety administrator, are two names sources are pointing to as her potential replacement, writes Pro’s Tarini Parti.

“The position, which was vacant for nearly two years before Hagen was appointed, is one food safety advocates have said they want filled as quickly as possible, especially given that Hagen’s replacement will inherit a number of meat and poultry regulation proposals expected to move forward next year, including changes to the poultry inspection system and a proposed requirement to put labels on mechanically tenderized beef.

“USDA officials say the timeline for replacement is unclear, but the White House could announce a nomination in early 2014. Given the change in Senate rules that now allows nominees to be confirmed more easily, the position is not expected to be open for as long this time around.” Get the full story here: http://politico.pro/1kOj2Rs

HAPPY MONDAY! Welcome to Morning Ag, where if the old adage that you are what you eat is really true, your host may develop gum drop eyes and a slightly ginger-ish hue. Thoughts? News? Tips? Feel free to send them to jhopkinson@politico.com and @jennyhops. Follow us @Morning_Ag and @POLITICOPro.

THE MONDAY MORNING BUZZ: MA predicts the biggest buzz this week will once again be the farm bill. Last week ended with an early Friday morning meeting of the four principal negotiators — Reps. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), and Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) — which seemed to go well and left lawmakers “very close” to a deal, according to Stabenow. The long awaited CBO scores — which have been blamed for the hold up on the bill all week — were finally in hand and “in the range we need them to be,” Stabenow added.

This week, Peterson and Lucas will return to Washington to continue working with the other two principals to iron out the details of the final bill in order to have it ready for quick passage when congress reconvenes in the second week of January. And the measure will likely be top of lawmakers agenda come 2014 given that no one in congress really wants to explain to their constituents why the price of milk has gone up. However, it is yet to be seen if both sides of the aisle will sign on to the deal.

CHINA BANS WEST COAST SHELLFISH: The Chinese government has moved to block all shellfish exports from California to Alaska after its inspectors reported finding high levels of arsenic and a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning in a shipment of geoduck clams. The move cuts an industry worth $270 million in the northwest United States off from its biggest export customer, and has health officials flummoxed, according to KUOW public radio in Seattle. http://bit.ly/1bR3gEm

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is urging federal officials to step in. He sent a letter Friday to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Acting Administrator Kathryn Sullivan, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and others pleading for help, and saying his state’s inspectors have found no problems. “Washington’s shellfish industries are very important to our state economy. The geoduck harvest in Washington generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to shellfish growers, harvesters, Indian Tribes and the state itself. And this development in export uncertainty comes at a time of year that is critically important for harvest,” Inslee’s letter says.

SENS. CALL FOR RELEASE OF POULTRY INSPECTION RULE: Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and 12 other senators from both parties are calling on USDA to finalize its proposed rule on poultry slaughter inspections, and are asking the department to give a hint as to its timing. The rule, which was proposed in January of 2012, is necessary as assessments of the measure have shown “at least 5,000 foodborne illnesses would be prevented if the poultry inspection system were modernized” and “almost $80 million in health care costs would be saved on an annual basis,” the lawmakers write in the Dec. 12 letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. Among the other lawmakers signed on to the letter are Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), John Boozeman (R-Ark.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) The letter is available here: http://politico.pro/1gAUGNy

FOOD SAFETY RULES DELAYED FOR ELECTION: Safety advocates and food industry groups have long suspected that the big Food Safety Modernization Act rules were stalled because of the 2012 election and now a new study suggests they may have been right. Leading up to the election, the White House Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs took longer to review significant federal regulations, according to a report by the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent government agency. In 2012, OMB took an average of 79 days to review major regs, compared to an average of 50 days from 1994 to 2011. The report is available here: http://1.usa.gov/1hW1RAk.

"One anonymous employee interviewed in the report said 'political sensitivities about rule making reached new heights during 2012, and some rules that had been completely uncontroversial in the past were delayed for weeks at OIRA,'" Bloomberg reported: http://bloom.bg/1fxg979

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CANTOR CAN BE GOOD FOR LOCAL PRODUCERS: In case you missed it late last week, Jim Slama, the president of Family Farmed, an organization that advocates for local and sustainable food produced by family farmers, had a chance brush with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in a Michigan restaurant and blogged about it for the Huffington Post. Slama never talked to the congressman but wrote a few ideas for how the powerful bulldog conservative might help the good food movement, by such things as funding the Farmers Market Promotion program, the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program and back off cuts to food stamps. Check out Slama’s article here: http://huff.to/1h31CAA

INTERNATIONAL BIOTECH THEFT: Three Chinese nationals linked to a state-owned seed company have been charged with trying to steel biotech seeds and trade secrets in the United State with plans to take the information back to China to develop new seeds there, Reuters reports. In a Dec. 10 complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, the Justice Department alleges that Mo Hailong, an official with the Chinese company Kings Nower Seed, stole biotech seed and corn, between 2011 and 2012, from test fields across the Midwest with the goal of sending them back to China. In a second and unrelated complaint, the DOJ is alleging that two other Chinese nationals employed at U.S. seed companies provided locations of where GMO seeds were being tested or gene sequencing information. The story is available here: http://reut.rs/18Oj8q4

DOJ SEEKS MENTAL TEST FOR PCA OFFICIAL: The Department of Justice is urging the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia to require a mental competency test for Stewart Parnell, the former head of Peanut Cooperation of America, the company that was linked to one of the most expensive food recalls in U.S. history, in late 2008 and early 2009, causing more than 3,900 different human and pet food products to be recalled due to fear of Salmonella contamination. The related outbreak killed nine people and made more than 700 others ill.

In a Dec. 4 motion, the DOJ argues that the former PCA official should be evaluated for competency following a mental health examination that found that “Mr. Parnell is very slow to adapt to novel stimuli, . . . he is easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli, his ability to adequately monitor his own behavior is impaired, and he has difficulty subordinating his activity to task requirements (i.e., impaired volition).” The doctor who completed the evaluation “opines that there is a 62.18% chance that Mr. Parnell has ‘a significant self-sustained attention problem.’” Parnell’s mental state could become an issue during what will likely be a lengthy trial, DOJ argues. In a Dec. 11 order, however, Judge Louis Sands said he would address the motion “at a future date.” The trial is currently scheduled to start July 7, 2014.

— USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack heads to China this week for talks with Chinese officials, and the recent rejection of U.S. corn shipments is expected to be among the topics discussed, Reuters reports: http://reut.rs/19LiaI2

— An appellate court in Europe has overturned a decision by the European Commission that would have allowed the cultivation and sale of a BASF-developed genetically modified potato in the EU: http://reut.rs/1cuHfI0

— The U.S. Apple Association has picked a former grain industry official with experience with biotech crops to be its new president in anticipation of the FDA’s approval of the Arctic Apple, the Capital Press reports: http://bit.ly/INp1dp

— Farmers in South Dakota are anxiously watching congress in hopes that a farm bill will soon be finalized that will provide aid to ranchers whose herds were devastated by the October blizzard, BusinessWeek reports: http://buswk.co/1efDGwg

— A western North Carolina dairy farm — said to be one of the biggest in the state, has pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act over discharging animal waste into a nearby river, the AP reports: http://bit.ly/JuKzw2

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